


Getting Into The Holiday Spirit

by afteriwake



Series: A Past Love [15]
Category: Doctor Who, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-05
Updated: 2012-07-05
Packaged: 2017-11-09 06:23:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/452315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn’t normally look forward to the holidays. This year is going to be different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Getting Into The Holiday Spirit

He did not like this Christmas tree, Sherlock decided as he hauled it up the steps. At least she was offering to help, but she had gotten the trunk. He had the pine bristles in his face. But he would admit that the smile on her face when she had picked it out helped temper down the irritation he felt at hauling it into their home. Finally they were up the stairs and into the common room, and he felt her set her end down. “You have the stand?” he asked.

“Oh, damn,” she muttered. “It’s in the car. Let me go get it.”

He heard her run down the stairs as he got a better look at the tree. It was indeed on the small side, as he had hoped. She hadn’t wanted a larger tree and he supposed part of the reason was she knew she would be helping to haul it up. There was fake snow blasted on the limbs of the tree, intermingled with real snow from the mass falling outside. It had not been pleasant driving back with the top of the convertible down, but they had to for the tree to fit.

He would admit it had been more trouble in the years before because John had always wanted a larger tree and they would have to arrange for someone to go with him and pick it out. This year would not be as bad, as the tree was not terribly heavy. Moving it around for the gift he had in mind for Amelia shouldn’t be a problem. 

Getting the gift into the room was going to be far more trouble than getting the tree in there, and he was not looking forward to that, nor was he looking forward to rearranging the entire room to make it fit. But he had the feeling when she saw the piano it would be well worth it. Only Mrs. Hudson and John knew, and he had them swear up and down that they wouldn’t breathe a word to Amy. They were going to come the day it got delivered and help move everything around. It would be an early Christmas present, ready for when she returned from Milan.

He knew exactly why he was doing this. She had gone every day for the last week to the music store and spent at least two hours there, and more when she could spare. He had accompanied her there the third day and listened as she played. She could definitely use more practice, but the skill was there, and he had not seen her look as relaxed or happy as she had been when she was seated at the piano. He wanted her to be able to feel that way at any time.

His thoughts were interrupted when he heard Amy bounding back up the stairs. “Got it,” she said with a smile. “Where should I put it?”

“Over by the couch,” he said. She went and found a spot with enough room and set the stand down. He hauled the tree over by himself and set it in the stand, holding it in place as Amy got on her hands and knees and tightened it. When she stood up he let go and the tree stood exactly where they had put it. “Good. At least this tree has the decency to stay put. The last tree John got kept leaning towards the side regardless of what we did to fix it.”

She chuckled. “Time to haul up the decorations now,” she said. She headed back to the stairs and he followed her down to the basement. He had not been there in many years, since Moriarty left the clue about the murder he had tried to solve when he was young. But she didn’t know this and went swiftly to the boxes. There were only two large ones and a small one, and she took one large one while he got the rest, and then they went upstairs.

He sat in her chair as she sat down on the floor and opened the box she had brought up. They were mostly glass ornaments, and as she pulled them out he glanced over them. They all seemed to be blue and white and silver, and he wondered if all her ornaments were this color. Then she opened the large box he had brought up and saw other ornaments in different colors. “You have a lot of ornaments,” he noted.

“Aunt Sharon gave me a lot of the ones from when I was a child,” she said. “Rory and I didn’t need to buy many, and I gave some of those back to his family so they could have memories of him on Christmas.” Her smile dimmed slightly. “They wanted me to come spend Christmas with them in Leadworth but I just can’t. His mother didn’t take it well.”

“You’ve only recently come back,” he said. “I’m surprised they weren’t more understanding.”

“Yeah, well, they had nine years to mourn. I haven’t had that long, but they think I have,” she said. Then she sighed. “I’ll call them Christmas morning regardless.”

He nodded and watched as she opened up the smaller box. These ornaments looked expensive. “Where did you get those?”

“River gave them to us,” she said with a smile. “They’re from all over the universe. She collected them and gave them to us the first Christmas she spent with us after we found out she was our daughter, mostly because we had no ornaments from when she was a child.” She pulled out one that looked like a bunch of crystals grouped together. “I usually put these on first.”

“Is she coming to visit?” he asked as she took the box and moved it closer to the tree, beginning to decorate.

“Christmas Eve,” she replied. “The Doctor has plans for them on Christmas day, and she knows we’ll be having the party, though she may pop in for it. She wasn’t sure what the Doctor had planned. But we’re going to go somewhere Christmas Eve.”

“A trip with the Doctor?”

She shook her head. “No, I won’t be going back to the TARDIS. We’ll be here somewhere in London, and we’ll go out to eat.”

“You do know they’re more than welcome to come here,” he said.

“Are you sure?” she asked, pausing in putting the ornaments on the tree.

He nodded. “I can find somewhere else to be.”

“You don’t need to do that. You can join us,” she replied. “River and the Doctor like you, and I don’t think they would mind.”

“If you want,” he said.

“I do,” she said with a smile.

They both stayed quiet as Amy added the rest of River’s ornaments, and then she handed a box of ornaments to him and pointed to the tree. He looked at it and stood up, going to the tree and placing ornaments on it. Amy didn’t tell him he was doing it wrong or anything like that, and when he was done with that box he went and picked up another. Amy had gotten the lights from the decorations John had left and wrapped them around the tree before picking up a box and adding more ornaments. They worked in a companionable silence until all the ornaments were on the tree.

“And finally, the tree topper,” she said with a grin, going to the mantle and picking up the skull. She handed it to him and he placed it on top of the tree. It immediately started to slip, and when he glanced at Amy she was frowning. “I don’t think it’s going to stay,” she said.

“I don’t think it will either,” he said, lifting it off. “I suppose you’ll have to get an actual tree topper.”

“I suppose so,” she said with a sigh. “I now know next Halloween I need to buy a fake skull.”

He smiled slightly at that and went to go take the skull back to the mantle. Amy went and plugged in the lights, then turned the lights in the room off. It was dark except for the tree, which was brightly lit with white lights. She stood looking at it, and he could see a satisfied smile on her face. It did look nice, he thought as he looked at it. “I think we did a good job,” he remarked.

“Yeah, I think so too,” she said. “It would look better with a tree topper, though.”

“You’ll find something,” he said. She turned to look at him with a grin on her face, and he gave her a smile back. He normally didn’t look forward to the holidays, but he had the feeling this year would be one of the better ones, if only because Amelia Pond was making sure of it.


End file.
